Members of Occupy L.A. were out in force today to protest a foreclosure auction at a downtown hotel.

When four or five of them got inside the downtown Sheraton hotel and shouted outside the doors of the meeting room where auction.com was selling properties to the highest bidders, police moved in and threatened the demonstrators with arrest, LAPD Sgt. T. Keenan told LA Weekly.

The occupiers ...

... complied and no one was collared, he said.

It happened shortly after 10 a.m at the Sheraton, Keenan said, which is at 711 S. Hope St.

The group has been shifting its focus toward home foreclosures, which some have argued are heartless and unfair, particularly in cases where homeowners have tried to make reasonable deals with taxpayer-bailed-out banks to keep their residences.

Even after they marched to a nearby branch of Mellon Bank, the demonstrators were behaved and cuffs weren't necessary, he told us.

The sergeant said the bank closed down as a precaution -- so Occupy members couldn't get in and set up tents, a tactic they've used before.

However, one man nearly set off a fracas when he began shouting at the protesters, Keenan said: